The Dark Web is Smaller Than You Think

New research by Recorded Future suggests that the Dark Web is far smaller than is generally believed. Rather than comprising an endless collection of obscure websites, the number of live domains on the Tor Dark Web amounts to less than 0.005% of accessible websites on the surface web.

In order to get an idea of the actual size of the Tor Dark Web, which is widely known as the place where threat actors post illegal content and trade illicit goods and services, security researchers decided to scan the entire network. They found only 55,828 domains, the vast majority of which were not accessible, leaving only 8,400 (15%) live sites that people can actually use. In addition, the uptimes of Dark Web sites, including popular ones, tend to be far lower than that of surface web domains.

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